


Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright

by Bionerd2Point0



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Magic, Angst, Descriptions of a dead body, Descriptions of decomposition, Discussion of Death, Established Relationship, Kinda, M/M, Mild Gore, Necromancer!Tim, Tim is a lil crazy, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unreliable Narrator, dark!Tim, jason is dead, jaytimspooktober, until he isn't
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27222229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bionerd2Point0/pseuds/Bionerd2Point0
Summary: Tim walks through the cemetery, lantern swinging playfully in one hand and a bounce in his step that’s been missing for six weeks.He’d seen Stephanie earlier that day, and he’d heard her whisper to Dick that he was unhinged. It is a fairly accurate description, really. Then again, Stephanie doesn’t know what it’s like when your only tether to the living world has been brutally cut and sent to the beyond. He doubts she’ll ever talk to him again. Not after she realizes how he used her to make tonight possible.It’s okay, after tonight, everything will be okay.
Relationships: Tim Drake/Jason Todd
Comments: 10
Kudos: 110
Collections: JayTimWeek





	Every Little Thing Is Gonna Be Alright

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween everyone! This is a bit darker than anything I’ve done in a while, so if you’re looking for hurt/comfort or fluff, you won’t really find that here. For those of you who like spooky darkness, well, this is for you. ;) 
> 
> Massive thank you to Strawberryjei!!! She was a big help in cleaning this up, cuz I’m still figuring out present tense (it was a hot mess lol). All remaining mistakes are mine.
> 
> Title from Bob Marley’s “Don’t Worry About a Thing” cuz an off key version of that was stuck in my head for _days_.
> 
> Enjoy!

Tim walks through the cemetery, lantern swinging playfully in one hand and a bounce in his step that’s been missing for six weeks. 

He’d seen Stephanie earlier that day, and he’d heard her whisper to Dick that he was unhinged. It is a fairly accurate description, really. Then again, Stephanie doesn’t know what it’s like when your only tether to the living world has been brutally cut and sent to the beyond. He doubts she’ll ever talk to him again. Not after she realizes how he used her to make tonight possible. 

It’s okay, after tonight,  _ everything _ will be okay. 

The angel of death stands tall before him, its features becoming more defined as he draws close enough to make out the epitaph on the gravestone. 

_ Jason Todd _

_ Beloved brother, son, and hero.  _

He hates the inscription. Bruce had refused to let Tim make the epitaph, even though they'd been dating for over a year and it was well known that Jason had hated Bruce the most.

It’s okay, everything will be okay again after tonight.

Tim sets the lantern and satchel out of his way before he lowers himself to his knees. The dew in the grass quickly seeps through his pants, sapping the warmth from his legs. The grass over Jason’s grave is short, and it’s easy to bury his hands into the earth. 

He reaches inside him to where the warm ball of magic rests, encouraging it to flow through him as his mother taught all those years ago.

“Mother of Earth, release your captive, I beg of you. I have no wish to disturb your slumber with the tools of man.” He’ll dig with his hands if he has to, but the Earth has listened before and that’s enough to get him to try.

All is silent, and he finds himself repeating his plea over and over, offering a steady stream of his magic in exchange. 

The soil around his hands shifts, sliding up his wrists and beneath his sleeves, cutting off his words. The dirt snakes up his shoulders to wrap around his throat, and for a long moment he doesn’t dare to breathe. Then the ground before him splits, rolling in either direction as the lower layers of earth are displaced and the topsoil is tucked underneath. 

It’s quiet, though, and before long Jason’s casket rests above the ground on a mound of freshly turned dirt, Mother of Earth having listened to Tim’s pleas. He stays still until the dirt around his throat crumbles, falling down his shirt and sticking to skin clammy in the humidity of the night. Bracing himself, he pushes himself up to his feet and approaches the casket.

Bruce had cast protective wards on it to keep the grave robbers away, but it’s a simple matter for Tim to whisper an unsealing spell and pull the latch keeping it closed. The wards weren’t meant to keep family away, after all. 

Lifting the headpanel of the casket is an experience. He thought he was ready to see his lover again, but the death is so much more obvious this time. Jason’s eyes are sunken in, face gaunt and skin grey. His hands are still folded across his chest, but where before there was strength and life, there is now little more than skin still clinging to bones. 

It doesn’t matter, everything will be okay soon.

Tim opens up the lower half of the casket quickly, not dwelling on how death makes his lover look or the smell that seeps into the night. He runs his hands over Jason’s body next, checking that the bones are all still whole from when he healed them for the funeral. The snap of bones realigning will be imprinted on his memory for the rest of his life. Dick had said he shouldn’t expend so much energy for something as simple as a viewing, that it made no difference if Jason was whole or not--he was dead. Well, jokes on him because healing Jason tonight would have sapped too much of his magic stores for Tim to finish. 

He runs a quick diagnostic spell, frowning at how the bacteria have run rampant and damaged so many of Jason’s internal organs. He casts a cleansing spell to kill the excess bacteria, but leaves the damaged tissue. It should be able to heal on its own when he gets to the regenerative portion of the evening. 

Moving to his satchel, he pulls out several bottles of water, opening them up and setting them along the inside edges of the casket. He makes sure he has everything else he needs, then climbs up into the casket himself to balance on his knees overtop of Jason’s body.

This next part is tricky, something that he hasn’t done since his mother died and Bruce took him under his wing. He feels giddy at the prospect of breaking another of Bruce’s rules, “subverting the natural order of things is  _ wrong _ ” after all. His mother used to say that there was no point in magic if everyone was just going to follow the natural order of the world, you just had to be a little bit more careful when breaking one of the cycles of life.

"A little bit more careful" is probably an overstatement here, but recklessness is a familiar friend. 

The words are easy to call up from his memory, echoes of a childhood spent reanimating dead animals to keep him company while his parents were away. Bruce had made him end the magic keeping them active after he moved to the Manor, and to this day the backyard of the Drake Mansion is covered by the remains of long dead animals.

His eyes start to glow an opaque white as he casts the spell, magic flowing from his fingertips into Jason’s shoulders. He doesn’t even notice how his right leg gets soaked by the water rushing to Jason’s body, working to rehydrate the tissues and loosen dried joints. 

The spell slows to a stop, and Tim finds himself gasping for breath as he tries to reconcile just how much of his magic it had taken. He waves a hand and Jason’s eyes open halfway, proving that his efforts have worked. 

He’s never reanimated anything larger than a raccoon before, and is grossly out of practice. He’ll have time to get back into the magical field later, it’s just a bit startling how much that took out of him. Tim's glad that the final step is one that doesn’t require anything from him.

He pulls the vial of toxic green liquid from his pocket, eyeing the Lazarous water critically. 

It had been difficult getting his hands on it. Bruce’s crusade to have all the Pits destroyed has been largely successful, but Tim had known that one remained. He’d just had to narrow down the location. 

Cass had remained tight-lipped when Stephanie brought her back from being puppeted around the world on a killing spree, but Stephanie… Well. He’s always known how to push Stephanie’s buttons.

All it had taken was a single pitiful question, and she had been  _ so  _ eager to share how horrific the beings revived by the Pit were. How they were no longer human. How she was never going to Turkey again… Tim had been able to figure out the rest on his own.

At one point in time, her naivety and innocence had been an attractive, welcome light in his life. Now, it is a tool for him to wield. 

He isn’t worried about bringing Jason back wrong. There’s a secret, you see. A secret that, if Ra’s knows it at all, Ra’s doesn’t practice when creating his twisted puppets.

Tim knows it, though. Tim knows it because his mother told him how his grandmother had revived her dead husband with water from the God of Death. How his grandmother had drank from the water, breathed life into her husband, and they’d lived happily for many years.

He uncorks the vial now, smelling the acrid fumes, then presses the rim to his lips, tips it back, and swallows. 

It’s dark and cold and  _ slimy. _ Ice chips over his very heart, and he knows his magic will be forever tainted by the darkness engulfing his soul. He breathes in slowly, can  _ feel  _ his breath sucking the life out of everything nearby. The grass withers and turns to ash. The insects of the night turn to dust. A bat falls to the ground, already naught but bones. 

He smiles at the irony as the wailing of the Mother of Nature echoes into the night. 

He grins as he feels the growing light of Jason's soul move within him.

Bending at the waist, he presses his lips to Jason’s and breathes out. Jason’s lungs fill, his soul tethers itself to the mortal plane, his eyes flutter of their own volition, and then he  _ screams. _

Tim holds him down as he thrashes in agony, half-decomposed organs suddenly knitting back together, every muscle in his body contracting and spasming as the magic works to undo six weeks of destruction. 

“It’s okay, my love,” Tim shushes him, petting his hair lightly. “Everything is okay now. I’m here.”

Beneath him, Jason sobs.

Everything is good once more.

**Author's Note:**

> AN 2: If you are like me and are fascinated by the process of death/what happens to the body after death, I highly recommend checking out _Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers_ by Mary Roach. It’s fantastic, and the narrative is surprisingly humorous, although not for those with weak stomachs. Even then, I highly recommend not snacking while reading. I’ll never look at trail mix the same again, but it was definitely worth it XD


End file.
